


Subtext

by Brighid



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: First Times, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-11 03:14:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/793391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brighid/pseuds/Brighid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blair teaches Jim some key fanfic terminology, and something else entirely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Subtext

**Author's Note:**

> As always, a bit of language. As always, non-explicit. 

## Subtext

by Brighid

Author's disclaimer: Not mine, not mine. This is an act of love, not commerce. 

X-Files references and spoilers, oddly enough. This is for Lit teachers and profs, who go cross-eyed trying to explain subtext to students. 

* * *

Subtext  
by Brighid 

I hear the car about four blocks away. Usually I don't pick up on it because I've learned to filter it out, but tonight he's late and it's labouring. I get up, throw the foil-wrapped bread into the oven with the lasagna and return to the couch, pick up my book again. It's a fantasy novel Sandburg talked me into, the first in a trilogy. I'm about halfway through and enjoying it, much to my surprise. The guy writes well, and makes me give a damn about the characters. One of them, a guy named Kevin, even reminds me a bit of Sandburg. Demon with the women, and really, really compassionate. I might even mention that to Sandburg, at least the part about the women. 

He's chanting something as he comes into the building, and after a couple of seconds I can get past the chattering teeth to make out "gotta pee gotta pee gotta pee!" He's still at it as he tumbles through the door I open for him. His knapsack goes sliding across the hardwood, about sixteen layers of winter clothes go flying like someone stuck a cherry bomb up his ass, and he's hightailing it to the john without even saying "hello" or "thank-you". And he bitches at me about my coffee habit? 

I hear the clack of the seat and then water hitting water, and he's sighing happily; I can't help but smile. Sandburg is one for simple pleasures, you've gotta give him that. I begin to pick up his sopping clothes before they leave a mess that'll ruin my blood pressure. A moment later he's beside me, picking up stuff and saying his hellos and thank-yous and apologizing for the mess. "Just had to take a leak like you wouldn't believe, man," he grins. 

"No kidding," I say, drily, and he suddenly realizes that I probably heard everything. A lot of guys would be embarrassed, but Sandburg's been here two years and he got over being piss-shy in the first week, so he just laughs at me. 

"Yeah, well, traffic was a bitch and I've been hanging on about two hours. I thought by the time I got here I was going to have to holler for you to carry me up the stairs," he says, shouldering his knapsack and balling up his flannels under his arm. 

"Like we don't have enough to explain to the neighbours!" I call after him as he disappears into his room. "Chief, the whole protect and serve thing doesn't extend to potty emergencies, just so you know. Dinner'll be ready in about ten, so get your ass in gear and help me set the table." 

He comes out in a fresh sweatshirt and jeans, hair down and a little wild after his toque. "Yeah, I thought something smelled good," he says, sliding past me into the kitchen to get plates and cutlery as I mix the dressing into the Caesar salad I made. It's low fat, at Blair's insistence, and though I grumble, I've gotta admit I like it better. It's sharper, has more taste. 

"It's the spinach lasagna you made and froze a couple of weeks ago," I admit. "I was reading and didn't feel like cooking from scratch." 

Blair smacks me on the arm as he passes back to the dining room. "That's why I smelled something _good_ , then." He glances up at me from the place he's setting, and his eyes are laughing at me, though he's doing a pretty good job of keeping his mouth straight. I wave my hand at him, back side out. 

"Have a bouquet, Sandburg," I say, and that does it, that cracks him up. I swear to God, sometimes it's like living with a sophomore. Still, I'm grinning back at him, and I'm the one who did it in the first place, so that doesn't say too much about me. "I'll have you know I fed myself for a lot of years before you appeared in my world." 

"Wonderburger fed you," he corrects, still smiling. "D'you want wine, milk, juice or water?" 

"Milk," I decide, setting the salad out and going to pull the dinner from the oven. He's got everything ready and poured by the time the bread's cut and the pan is resting on the trivets. It occurs to me that we work well together, that things run smoothly between us. Caroline and I never managed like this, at any rate. One of us usually got ordered to go watch television while the other worked. With Blair, it's so slick I barely even notice. 

I like that. Like the thing about Kevin, in the story, I may or may not tell him. The kid's too cocky by half, sometimes. 

But I think I like that, too. 

* * *

Dishes don't really take too long, not with Blair going on about some faculty meeting he got stuck in. Somehow he turns budget wrangling into a comedic masterpiece, complete with impressions and asides, and he's got me laughing so hard that I've got to stop drying the last of the plates, afraid I'll drop them. I guess, for once, they can rest in the drying rack. 

He beats me to the sofa, grabs the remote, and looks up at me. "Mind if I watch X-Files?" he asks, and I nod and pick up my book. I tuck into the loveseat and turn down my hearing so that I can focus on the story. After awhile, though, I put down the book and tune into the show, into Sandburg. It's a repeat, on the Sci-Fi Network, one he has to have seen a few times, but he's totally into it. He watches with his mouth open. Bet he watched Saturday morning cartoons like that. 

I glance back at the screen, to see the guy with one arm, Kry-whosits, kissing the fed weenie that's always pissing and moaning about the truth. It's not a hot, sexy kiss or anything, but it lingers a bit and it seems odd in light of what's been going down. I glance up to see Sandburg grinning at the scene, fisting the air slightly. "What's with that?" I jerk my chin towards the screen, and he glances over at me, still smiling. 

"That, my man, is major uhst," he informs me, and damn, I feel like a knuckle-dragger when he does that. I'm an educated man, even if I don't hang the diplomas and certificates and awards on the wall, but Sandburg says things I've never heard of, on occasion. This is one of them. 

"What the hell is uhst?" I demand. "Is that the black crap from last season?" 

My thoughtful, considerate roommate falls back against the couch, laughing his ass off. "Nonononono, uhst, Jim. U-S-T," he spells out. "Stands for unresolved sexual tension." 

Well, that answers that. "What? What sexual tension? I thought Moldy wanted Scully?" I'm trying to wrap my brain around all this, but I get the feeling I've take a serious detour into the Sandburg zone. I glance back at the screen, and sure enough, Scully's there with him on the couch, and the one-armed man is long gone. 

Sandburg swallows a fit of the giggles and nods. "Well, yeah, they've got some major UST, too, but this season it's been moving to rust. R-S-T," he clarifies. "They've been playing it more in the open with those two, so it's not nearly as exciting." 

I nod, because with Sandburg that's usually the best option. "Hokay, then, Darwin. I'll take your word for it. I'm not a fan of the show or anything, but don't those two guys usually beat the shit out of each other? That doesn't seem very...well, sexual, you know?" 

He sits up, pushing his hair back, and I can almost see it happening: Blair Sandburg, entering teacher mode. "Well, but it is, Jim. Think about it. In our society, we discourage the homoerotic bond that other cultures have embraced. Soldiering in the Greek style and all that. We've got to channel and express the intensity of these shared experiences in some way, right? People'd freak if two guys suddenly clinched and swapped spit and knocked the table sideways in a sex scene, but hey, just knocking each other senseless is a A-OK, no problemo, man. It's another avenue for passion, and when you really watch it, you can see the same intensity underlying it as the best sex scenes. It's the same set of chemicals, man, just focused in a different direction." He sighs at this, and it sounds just a little disgusted. "That's part of the reason why we're so fucked up, y'know? It's okay to show two guys pulping each other, but a little kiss freaks the masses into calling the network." 

Okay, I guess some of what he says makes sense. I'm a bright enough guy, in my own right, and I've been around a bit. And when I was younger, I've got to admit there were times I came out of a mission or home from a case with a hard-on that just wouldn't quit. I can wrap my brain around that much, although I'm not sure I see it in the X-Files. I tell him that, and he just smiles at me. 

"Well, a whole lot of people out there do," he says, his hands waving about. Give it a minute or two more and he'll be up and pacing. "There's a whole genre of fanfic called slashfic, where they explore this...subtext. They find the little moments where it shines out, capitalize on it. There are some really great stories out there. Like salsa, they come in all varieties, from sweet and mild, to scorch your eyeballs. And it makes sense, like totally, when you read it." 

"People write stories about the show?" I ask, surprised, wondering what sort of weenie lives these people had. "They write stories about Moldy and the one-armed guy having sex?" 

Sandburg claps his hands to his head and throws himself back against the couch. "Jesus, Jim. Where the hell have you been living the last thirty years? Fan fiction has been around my whole _life_ , I can't believe you've never...shit, man." He just shakes his head at me, as though dealing with a particularly thick student. "Man, Star Trek cons have had fanzines for years, and were some of the first to have slash." 

Kirk and Spock? "Kirk and Spock? That's...weird, Sandburg," I manage at last. "Anyone else I need to know about? Anything else I haven't been watching right?" and he's off and laughing again at that. 

"You name it, man, they've found the subtext," he says finally, when he can breathe again. "Luke and Han, G'Kar and Londo, Starsky and Hutch, Picard and Q, Hercules and Iolaus, although that one is technically canon, if you go by the myths...Xena and Gabrielle, too, although you see it less with female characters, and hell, they've moved it out of the subtext into the open, almost." He shrugs. "You can tell who runs the networks, man. Nobody's screaming over those two, but there's one show, where the one male lead, a cop, hugged his male friend...whoo-hoo, people pissed themselves over that." He sits up. "I think I've got some fanfic saved on disk, if you want to check it out. Some slash, some general stuff." He pauses, halfway to his feet. "Uh, that is, if the slash won't squick you out...?" he asks, suddenly a bit hesitant. 

I wave my hand irritably at him. "How long have you lived here, Sandburg? Autopsies don't 'squick' me, so I don't think two guys kissing is gonna be the end of my world. And you've got me curious, 'cause right now I just don't see it." 

He disappears into his room, and comes out a minute later with his laptop, which he plugs in. Once it's all booted up he slips in a disk. "Knock yourself out, man. I've got some marking to do. Let me know what you think, okay?" 

I'm already opening up an X-File, something called "Ghosts", because that's the one that comes up as most recent, so I just wave him off. This isn't what I'd planned for the evening, but he's got me curious. 

* * *

Well, either I'm totally blind or these people have overactive imaginations. I mean, yeah, when I think about it, I can see where they're coming from. I can see that Krycek guy being at total bastard but still caring about Mulder and all, but sometimes...well, a cigar is just a cigar. Not everything about human interactions is based in sex, otherwise no one would go to work, never mind wear pants. 

I close up the laptop and take it back over to Sandburg, who's just packing it in for the night. "Some of the stories were pretty damned good. Sexy, too, if not my usual thing. But I still think they're building a lot into it, Chief. Not everything's about sex." I stand, stretch, and head towards the bathroom. "I mean, look at us. We live together, work together, and hang out together. And I touch you all the time," I offer, trying to explain my point. He doesn't say anything, not a word, until I'm in the bathroom brushing my teeth, and then it's so quiet I almost miss it. 

"Yeah, Jim, you do," and damn, if he doesn't sound...wistful. By the time I'm done and heading up to the loft to sleep he's cleared off the table and is in his room with the door shut. I linger outside his door for a moment, wondering what the hell that was about, but now is not the time to push it. 

I wait until I'm halfway up the stairs before hollering goodnight, lingering until I hear him say it back. Then I lie awake for about an hour, listening to him breathing and thinking real damn hard about the concept of subtext, and the last two years. I'm still going in circles when I drift off to sleep. 

* * *

The next morning, everything is just like it's always been, except I'm aware of every move he makes, every move I make. It's not like I'm embarrassed or looking for hidden meaning, because the thing about Blair is he doesn't hide all that much, not really. It may not be right on the surface, but if you take the time to look into him, it's there. I just usually don't look. 

Today, I do. 

He makes my breakfast as he's gulping down a kelp drink and eating pineapple and I'm making us both bagged lunches and it's so...domestic, so comfortable and I realize that I've just accepted this and it's not _normal_. Not bad, but not normal. I've had roommates, in college, and we shared the same space but we never really shared each other's lives, not like this. This is _nurturing_ , a relationship. I mean, shit, yeah, sometimes I made lunches for Stevie but that stopped as soon as he could manage a butter knife without putting an eye out. Here I am, though, spreading mustard and laying down sprouts and slicing it diagonal like he likes and he's got my eggs on a plate and...well, hell. 

There's some subtext going on, after all. Now, is this gonna be smarm or slash, that's what I'm trying to figure out. 

* * *

It stays with me the rest of the day; I review the last two years as I'm cleaning up reports and working on about three different paper trails, and I realize that _nothing_ about us has ever been normal, not really. I mean, I'm almost forty and I have a freaking roommate. We wash each other's underwear, and last time I had the flu he was emptying out the bowl I puked into because I was too damned miserable to get to the toilet. I remember the one time I got that sick with Caroline. Lovely woman that she is, she still left me to deal with my own messes, since we were both grown-ups. At the time, that seemed the right thing. Now I'm not so sure. It's not like Sandburg and I fuss or anything; we just take care of one another, and I kind of like it. 

He comes in about two o'clock, saying something about the universal ignorance of freshmen. I'm just finishing my sandwich at my desk and he goes grabbing for my apple and I block and he feints and he ends up with his arm twisted behind his back, lightly, and we're both laughing and grinning and then I think, subtext. I don't do this with anyone else, not really. I mean, yeah, if we're playing football I might swat some guy, on the ass even, but that's what you do, right? 

You don't wrestle with other guys over an apple. You don't touch each other's backs when you ask for a file, or swat their cheeks to get their attention. You don't touch, constantly, hourly. I find myself going through a sensory review here, and I realize with a 'whumph' in my gut that I know way too much about him. I know the way his skin feels, the way his hair smells, the rate of his pulse and the way he breathes when he's trying not to laugh. I know how his eyes roll up when H calls him Hairboy, and then I realize I know that his eyes aren't just blue, but about eight different shades, with these little flecks of gold in them that glow when he's happy. I even know how he tastes, sort of, because he's always grabbing my pop or beer or water by mistake. I think that part should probably make me 'squick' as Sandburg would say, but it just seems part of the package, the same one I've been accepting as a matter of course for two years. It seems stupid to get worked up about it now. 

What does trouble me, a bit, is how much I like it. How much I'd miss it if it were gone. Without thinking about it, we've just gone and completely integrated our lives, and now...now it's like breathing, or sleeping, or taking a leak. A part of life, of the everyday. 

A lot of married couples don't have that. 

He's watching me, now, having slipped out of my loose hold, and he touches my arm, and you know, it feels good. "You okay, man? Did you pop something?" he asks, his smile slipping into a slight frown. "I forget you old guys can't take rough handling," he jokes, and I smile at him, nudging him hard enough to push him into the wall. 

"Bite me, Sandburg. This old man beat you in three consecutive games of Twenty-one last week, and don't you forget it," I say softly, patting his cheek with two fingers. "Now sit down and earn your keep, Junior. There's something in the Delgado file I'm missing, and I need you to help me figure out." 

He laughs, and sits in the chair that has just sort of attached itself to my work area in the last while, and we delve into the file. Up to my eyeballs in a double-homicide, I forget this whole subtext thing for awhile. 

* * *

Dinner's got me thinking about it again, though. We work together to make it, and I know it's a small kitchen but we brush against each other way more than is strictly necessary. There's this soap commercial that says we need anywhere from one to three feet of personal space, but as far as I can tell, personal space just doesn't exist between us. Once again, I realize that I kind of like it. I may be the king of repression, but two years of Sandburg working me over has had some effect. I like touching him, and while it isn't precisely a sexual feeling, it isn't exactly entirely non-sexual, either. It's creature comfort, it's pleasurable. It's fucking weird, too, but what else is new in my life? 

Finally, dinner over and dishes done and me reading and him watching X-Files again, I get the feeling that he's watching me, and he is. "What's up, Chief?" 

He frowns slightly, mutes the television. "I was gonna ask you that, man. You've been in a weird headspace all day, y'know?" 

I shrug. "I've been thinking," and I hold up a pre-emptive hand for the smart remark I see lurking. "I do that occasionally, Darwin. Think. It's not all the heady world of "Ugh, me Sentinel!" genetic throwback, you got that?" He swallows a smile, and nods. "Yeah, well, I've just been working something out in my head." 

"Sounds serious," he says, head cocked a little to the side, eyes on me like searchlights. "D'you want to talk about it?" His voice is neutral, almost diffident. He knows the usual response to _that_ question. So I tell him yeah, sure, and then laugh when his mouth opens and then snaps shut so quickly he bites his tongue. "Who the hell are you, and what have you done with Jim Ellison?" he asks at last, once his eyes stop watering. "Seriously, though, what's up?" 

I put the book down, slide onto the floor and stretch out. If I flex my foot, I can touch his. "I've been thinking about subtext," I reply, and he sort of nods and then shakes his head in confusion. 

"Subtext?" he asks, and his hands spread out wide, as though he's trying to pluck my thoughts out of the air between us. He's got nice hands, broad and square and bigger than mine. I like them, just like I'm starting to realize I like a lot of things about him. 

"Yeah, like what we talked about last night. How so much of human relationships are below the surface, where no one looks." He nods, beginning to catch my drift, but not quite there yet. "And what you said after I pointed out I touch you all the time," I continue, and he just sort of freezes, his pupils flaring and his breath hitching slightly. "I assume, living with a Sentinel, you expected that last bit to be heard, right?" 

He nods. "Yeah, I guess I did. Just didn't expect you to _think_ about it. Bad Sentinel, _bad_ Sentinel," he jokes, but his voice shakes a bit. 

I smile at that, at him. "Yeah, well, but you're right, you know. I just never thought about it, until this morning, and then when I thought about it, I realized how weird it is...except, it's just so fucking natural, I never noticed it." 

His temperature goes up and his heartbeat is faster than normal, but not in panic mode yet. "Yeah, it's just who we are," he agrees. "Part of the whole sentinel/guide continuum, probably." 

I shake my head a bit at him. "Yeah, but what part, Sandburg? That's what I've been wondering. Don't get me wrong here, I'm not saying I'm upset or anything, it's just that...I touch you more than I touched my wife. Hell, I _like_ touching you more than I liked touching my wife. And that's...weird. And I've been trying to wrap my head around it." I'm watching him, watching him closely, and he's nodding but he's afraid, too, like there's something he's dying to do but he's scared it'll blow up in his face. 

I've jumped into battle sites, worked black ops and tracked serial killers. I even went ahead with this discussion. I bite down and cross over to him, and I touch his face with the back of my hand; he just sort of closes his eyes and breathes real deeply and lets his cheek rub against me. "You like it, too," I say softly, and those eyes open, and he nods at me, for once without that barrage of words he holds up between himself and anything that scares him. 

"I'm going to try something," I say, still softly. "If it doesn't work, then no harm, no foul. That okay with you, Chief?" He nods, his eyes huge and dark, and he's barely breathing at all. I lean in, let my mouth brush over his, and the only thing I can think of for a moment is how soft and warm he is. He's like velvet under my mouth, and then his lips open and he's hot and wet and he tastes good, he feels so goddamned good and my hands are in his hair and my tongue is tasting his mouth, his jaw, the hollow of his throat. I'm so alive I'm humming, and when our bodies tangle up and my crotch brushes against his, it's like a current zaps through us both. 

"Jesusshitfuck," he yelps, bucking up against me; I stop what I'm doing and start laughing and then he's laughing, too. 

"What you said," I manage at last, pulling back a bit but still touching him. "I'm going to guess that worked, Chief." 

"What was your first clue?" he asks wryly, adjusting himself inside his jeans. "Jesus, Jim. What was that?" 

"What we are," I say after a long while just looking at him. And it is, really. It's just the same as me holding his head and him scrubbing the toilet and me remembering that he hates the Bavarian filling in his birthday cakes. It's always, always been there. We just had to read between the lines, to actually think about the unthinkable and realize -- what the hell. Some things just are. 

Some things are just great. 

"So, Chief," I say, pulling him close again, letting myself inhale his scent from behind his ear, the side of his neck. "If it's unresolved sexual tension, it's UST. If it's resolved, it's RST. What's it called if it's love?" 

"Schmoop, man. Schmoop." His breath is coming sharp and short and then he's kissing me like he could crawl inside me. 

Schmoop. I can do that. 

* * *

End Subtext. 


End file.
